Dao of Strategy #2: The Art of the Plan

The picture and the concept of the following content are from

http://www.makinggoodsoftware.com/page/2/

Successful strategists practice good planning. They usually delineate the amount of time that they would expend on the act of planning before implementing anything. Depending on the situation, this group of professionals knows when to focus their planning for a sophisticated solution of extensibility and customizability and when to focus on a pragmatic solution of simplicity and order.

The successful strategist is a planner who does the following:

• Prioritizes the simple implementations, in the roles matrix is comfortable only in the first column;
• Discusses his preferences about planning up front;
• Always focus on maintaining simple implementations as a priority;
• Know when to focus on sophisticated planning and when to focus on pragmatic planning ;
• Focus on the objective while minding the big tangible picture (btp); and
• Avoids the prioritization of getting things done now

Compass Rule of Assessing, Planning and Implementing :

The time needed to implement your plan is inversely proportionally to the time that you spend assessing the grand situation and building a plan.

Compass Rule for Planning

The key to selecting a pragmatic planning approach or a sophisticated planning approach is to understand the configuration of  the Big Tangible Picture.

Questions to Consider

• What are the attributes in your big tangible picture?
• Have you compare it to the other strategists concept of the big pictures?
• What approach How do you assess it?
• What are your decision points that are within your big tangible picture?

Conclusion

Once you know the configuration of the big tangible picture, you can assess, plan and implement with a stream-lined focus.

You will be able to perform the following seven points:

• Find the path of least resistance;
• Avoid the negative situations;
• Focus on the positive situations;
• Anticipate the opportunities;
• Adjust strategically;
• Shape the configuration of the big tangible picture; and .
• Lead with the big tangible picture from start to finish.

By completing the above items, you can also reap the following rewards:

• the maximization of profits;
• the minimiziation of costs;
• the acceleration of delivery;
• the mitigation of risks; and 
• the assurance of quality.

Are you following those seven points in your projects? ...